The Grammarian (21 page)

After the last of the guests had blessed them, the new couple rose, Mohini’s sari tied to her groom’s dhoti, and mechanically, almost as if she’d practiced it many times before, she followed him around a small fire, and upon sitting, Varun pushed silver rings onto Mohini’s chubby toes. They were married.

Alexandre closed his eyes as the wedding celebrations danced on, the entertainers and musicians still joyful in their arts, the mood of celebration moving steadily on into the night and bursting out onto the streets of the village. The servants came out, arranging a huge and delicious meal. Despite the absence of alcohol, he felt dizzy and drunk on the perfume of cigarettes and pipes, the incense still burning from the
puja
. There was dust clinging to the sweat on his skin: the Adivis had bought him a silk kurta for the event and it was starched and heavy. Heat emanated from his hands; everything felt hot. He could feel his heart and head pounding to the percussive thumping of the musicians; his muscles felt powerful but relaxed. He felt the dancers spinning as if they were moving inside his body. He smiled as he looked at their painted faces. He felt euphoric. It seemed like a dream and it was nearly morning before he thought of bed. The lights of the festivities flickered merrily against the night sky as he walked at long last to his bedroom, the smell of burning oil, of silk, spices and burned sugar, smells he had come to greatly love, filled up the air, and he slept, his pale, bare chest rising and falling in the troubled but deep sleep of the unjust.

A
FTER THE WEDDING
, Mohini had gone to her new husband’s home with a small entourage of her mother’s cousin, as it was custom for the girl to be taken to her new home by a maternal aunt. The servants slept very little and were awake and working by the time Alexandre rose in the late morning. There were charred spots on the garden floor where lanterns had burned all night; flower petals, grains of rice and teacups everywhere; a hundred banana leaves that had been dinner plates the night before in a pile ready for the rubbish fire. The morning light made mundane what had been a grand party the night before. He sat down in the garden and lit a cigarette. He saw a servant and with a single glance made it understood that he wanted coffee. He opened his notebook and reread the introduction to his book. He saw Anjali coming toward him and inwardly sighed—he was too tired for company, especially hers. He smiled, nevertheless, and motioned to a chair nearby. A servant came by with a cup of coffee, and upon seeing Anjali scurried back to the kitchen to fetch another cup.

“You promised me you’d read the rest of your introduction to me, Dr. Lautens.”

“Yes, I suppose I did,” he said sleepily. If he were not a polite man, he’d have asked for some peace, some time alone this morning. “Where were we?” He ran a lazy fingertip over the open page of his notebook, cleared his throat and pushed his hair out of his eyes, “While Telugu speakers share many religious and cultural similarities with North Indians, Dravidian languages are indeed distinct and do not share a common source with Sanskritic languages like the aforementioned Hindi.

“As I will demonstrate later, Telugu has a rich case system. This type of system will be familiar to students who have studied languages
like German, but Telugu expands this system and you will find it quite intricate.

“It may not be of utmost importance to the average student to learn to read Telugu. Nevertheless, I will briefly expound on the written language later—”

“ANJALI!”

Anjali started, spilling coffee onto the floor, Alexandre stood up, the maids dropped plates of food. They all looked over to see Shiva standing in front of the garden. Despite her legs, Anjali leapt to her feet and, grabbing her cane, hobbled over to her father.

“Daddy, what is it?”

“Come here.” The coldness in his voice made her shiver.

Alexandre jumped and ran to her as Shiva’s palm landed hard on the girl’s cheek.

“Shiva!” Alexandre shouted, forgetting himself, “What is this?!”

“You stay out! This is a family matter, and you are a foreigner. You have caused enough trouble for my family! My God! Even the bloody fish vendors are talking about me!”

“Adivi please, what is happening?”

Anjali cowered, her face in her hands, weeping.

Shiva glowered at Lautens. “Taking her out of this house with you, like she were a common whore, which,” Shiva breathed shakily, “evidently she is!”

“Adivi, please,” Alexandre felt the blood drain from his face, “please, let me explain . . . it was nothing.” Alexandre and Shiva turned to see Lalita and Kanakadurga approaching, Anjali running into her grandmother’s open arms, the old woman’s eyes horrified and confused. Tired relatives, hearing the commotion, began to wander into the garden.

“Shiva, what is this? What is happening?” Lalita looked at her husband and daughter and the pale European in her home, each of their contorted faces like Greek masks of tragedy; Mohini followed her mother, her eyes wide, startled by the commotion.

“This whore,” Shiva pointed at his eldest daughter, “decided to disgrace our family by going out to with this foreigner yesterday, bathing in the ocean practically nude!”

Alexandre pressed his hands together, pleading, “Adivi, Lalita, please, listen, it was nothing . . . she merely accompanied me yesterday morning as I ran errands.”

“LIAR!” Shiva boomed. “Do you know, Dr. Lautens, how I found out this morning? I heard the servants gossiping. My servants. Gossiping. About me. Made to look a fool in my own home. Only Subba Rao had the decency to tell me outright.” Shiva caught his breath, “Dr. Lautens, I am afraid I must ask you to go. You are no longer welcome in my home. I cannot believe you had the nerve to disgrace me in this way! And in front of our whole family! You have until the morning to gather your belongings and leave. If I find you cavorting again with anyone in my family, making an ass of me the way you did yesterday,” he hissed, “I shall report you to the police for your . . . indecencies with my daughter.”

“Indecencies! Adivi, have you gone mad? I took the girl to the beach yesterday morning. That is all! We went into the water, fully clothed! I beg you to calm down and collect your senses.” The female guests in their nightgowns all looked at the goings-on with expressions of open-mouthed horror, clutching crying babies.

Seeing her husband shaking with rage, Lalita stepped between the two men, pressing her hands on her husband’s chest, restraining him
only with the help of one of his cousins. “Shiva, please,” she whispered. Over her shoulder she looked at Alexandre, “Dr. Lautens, I am sorry, but it is best if you leave. I will have Prithu help you pack your belongings.”

Dumbfounded, Alexandre turned to Kanakadurga, who was bent over her sobbing granddaughter. Kanakadurga, sensing his eyes on her, looked up, her eyes watery and brown, her leathery hands holding Anjali tight.

Alexandre looked at her and lightly touched his right palm over his heart. He looked into the old woman’s eyes and said in a voice that was barely audible, “Kanakadurga Amma Garu, I am sorry.”

H
E WALKED TO
his room, astounded, the soft taps of his footsteps echoing in the lonely silence. And then he heard a small voice—something that slipped through the air like a whip of wind, so lightly sounded he wasn’t sure he’d heard it until he turned reflexively and saw the last syllable still on her lips, her eyes wet and darker than ever before. “Alexandre . . . ” Anjali said. He turned and looked at her, her deformed body folded into a corner of the hallway, and she seemed frozen like a statue, her arms raised in a poetic gesture, as if she might catch his name back in her long, graceful fingers. The word lifted off her mouth and sailed toward him. “Had she said that?” he wondered. Had she dared say his Christian name? Alexandre felt the blood rush to his face. He almost shouted in fury but turned away instead and marched to his room.

“Alexandre! Alexandre!” They always said it, all of them. The time Claudine had taken out his bicycle without his permission and fallen, and Alexandre, then still smooth faced, carried Claudine through the
neighborhood streets like a little bride, his dented bicycle lying in the street near the wall into which she’d driven. The neck of his shirt was open and his book bag flapped against his leg. He cleaned the cuts on his sister’s face. “Alexandre!” from his mother, whose need for sympathy could never ever be satiated. “Alexandre” from Madeline, whether in irritation or lust, always that calling; he wished to banish those syllables so they would none of them know by which name to call him.

Did Anjali call out to him in desire? Was it that helpless cry like Catherine? A childlike sob for help or a sisterly plea? He could no longer tell. All those voices converged like a rope around his neck and Alexandre, closing the door on his room, as he had never done before, pulled angrily at his hair like a widow in mourning.

10

P
RITHU WAS CURLED
like a small animal on the floor near the room that Alexandre had come to feel was his own. The boy jumped up and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

Alexandre felt weary and without any fight left in his spirit. “It is alright Prithu, you can rest.” Alexandre frowned as the boy, clearly drowsy, remained standing. His eyes were red, but his back upright, like a toy soldier.

Though he was trembling inside, Alexandre steadied his hands and found the corporal strength to arrange his things. Alexandre first took his notes down from a shelf, collecting them in his leather case. He’d kept extensive lists. All the etymological bases, the verbal systems, and the mythology, too, that Kanakadurga had told him; it hadn’t been immediately relevant to his work but it fascinated him. He found it funny that so many of his favorite memories from the Adivi home had been the times he’d spent a languorous afternoon with an old woman.

Prithu, not accustomed to handling Western clothes, clumsily tried to help Alexandre fold his suits into his suitcase. Alexandre touched the boy’s head lightly. “Good boy,” he said, softly, pressing the crease of a pair of trousers under his chin as he folded them against his chest.

Alexandre assembled his books and looked through his notebooks for Anthony Davidson’s calling card.

H
OURS LATER
,
HIS
belongings nearly all packed away, there was soft knocking on the door, and Alexandre opened it slowly, unsure of what or whom to expect. Kanakadurga stood in the doorway, in her hands two stainless steel tiffin boxes. “You can’t leave without some food, Alexandre,” her voice was hushed.

She walked into his room and put the tiffin boxes on his desk. “I had them loaded with snacks and sweets. These will keep well so you can pack these now. In the morning, Mary will bring you some curries and rice.” She spoke in Telugu to Prithu, her voice soft but stern; the boy left the room. Kanakadurga walked past the bed and the wooden armoire in the room and opened the doors to the balcony. Alexandre was surprised to see the sun setting, realizing how much time he must have been alone in his room, preparing to leave. Kanakadurga took his arm, and walked him out onto the balcony.

The old woman pointed. “Dr. Lautens,” she said, eyeing the sky and the great birds circling overhead, “do you have the ossifrage in France?” She pointed at the purple-plumed vultures. “The bone-breaker. It captures the little turtles off the ground and lifts them up into the sky—higher than they have ever been before, and the turtles gaze at the large world that they have never known the majesty and vastness of. There it is—the whole world: the turtle sees the land and the blue ocean, the forests, the towns—then the ossifrage finds a bed of rocks upon which to drop the turtle, to break his bones and eat his meat.